WELCOME TO WILDLIFE ONLINE

Content Updated: 1st December
2016

SEASONAL
UPDATE: December 2016

November was, to put it mildly, a changeable month. We had an
unseasonably cold start, with high pressure over Scandinavia bringing
air down from the Arctic across the UK for the first week or so.
Temperatures dropped to -8C (16 F) in some parts of Scotland and even
here on the south coast the New Forest saw -4C (25 F) on 8th November
and our garden in Southampton dropped to -1C (30 F), with the second
frost of the autumn. The night of the 7th/8th November saw snow in parts
of eastern northern England, but generally the cold spell was short
lived and the arrival of a couple of low pressure systems brought wind
and rain and saw the temperatures climb back up to a very mild 17C (63
F) by mid-November. Overall, a provisional dataset released on 15th
November suggests 2016 is on course to, once again, be the warmest since
pre-industrial times. Unfortunately for most stargazers in England, the
very mild middle of the month was partly the result of a thick blanket
of cloud that obscured the ‘super moon’ on the 14th. Wales saw
mini-tornados during the middle of the month and storm “Angus” brought
heavy rain and strong winds to the south of England on the weekend of
the 19/20th November. Angus brought 97mph winds in the Channel and
108mph off the Kent coast, as well as some heavy rain, which caused
localised flooding. Northern England and Scotland escaped the storm, but
experienced some of their coldest weather of the autumn. High elevations
of northern England saw their first snowfall of the season. November
finished on a bitterly cold note, with -10C (14 F) recorded in sheltered
Scottish glens, -8C down south in Oxford and even -4C here in
Southampton city.

If November didn’t convince you to stay indoors until the spring, as
always, the RSPB and Wildlife
Trusts are running a series of outdoor events this month aimed at
getting people involved with the nature that surrounds them. Similarly,
the Forestry
Commission has various events, including walks, talks and craft
sessions, and the Marine
Conservation Society has its usual selection of beach clean events
running up and down the country this month.

Mammals:
December marks the beginning of the breeding season for two of our
mammal species: the red fox and the Chinese water deer. Foxes start to
become more territorial at this time of year, they’re more vocal and
they are more likely to be seen travelling in pairs, as the dog follows
a vixen waiting for her to come into season. Most matings will happen
after Christmas, but the pace of fox society picks up this month as
preparations begin and urban families will begin breaking down.
Not all fox families split up, and dispersal of cubs can happen at any
time of the year, but winter is a peak time for cubs to strike out on
their own. More information about the fox breeding can be found in the
main red fox article.

Territoriality among male Chinese water deer is also increasing this
month. This species escaped from captivity during the 1940s and had
established itself within the wilds of Bedfordshire within two decades.
Water deer can now be found widely throughout Bedfordshire and East
Anglia, particularly the fenland and farmland of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk
and Suffolk and around Woburn. At this time of year, the normally
chilled-out water deer bucks dig small scrapes in the ground into which
they urinate or defecate; the latrines serve as territory markers. Bucks
try to attract does to their territories and then follow them while
emitting a ‘squeaking’ sound. When approaching a doe the buck will hold
his head low while twisting it, causing a slapping noise to be generated
by the ears. Most matings will occur in the buck’s own territory and
there are reports of bucks trying to constrain females by encircling
them. Interloping males are chased away and occasionally two evenly
matched bucks may fight. As with all deer species, fights start with two
animals walking side-by-side, each assessing the other’s size and
general condition – this we call parallel walking. If neither backs
down, the two will fight. Water deer lack antlers; instead, they dance
around each other, each trying to slash the other with their elongated
upper canines (above), which may grow
to 6cm (almost 2.5 inches). Fights can be serious, and deaths do occur,
although water deer fur is comparatively loose and falls out easily,
which can make fights seem more violent than they actually are. Cold
weather is required to bring Chinese water deer does into season, so
very mild autumns and winters, as we experienced last year, reduce
rutting activity.

Being the start of winter, December is a month in which many mammals,
ourselves included, venture out less. Badgers, for example, spend most
of the winter underground where they even create indoor toilets to
reduce the need to go outside. Some mammals prefer to opt out of winter
altogether and our bats, dormice and hedgehogs are the only British
mammals that truly hibernate (if you’re wonder what makes hibernation
‘true’, it’s all to do with lowering body temperature and reducing
biochemical processes – read more here). With that in mind, please check
any piles of garden rubbish before having a bonfire. Such spots make
ideal hedgehog hibernation venues and an untold number are killed in
bonfires every year. Hedgehogs build thick-walled hibernaculums in which
to spend the winter, although hibernation is not the constant state that
many imagine and a hedgehog will wake up periodically. In most cases the
hog will wake up, move around in the hibernaculum for a while and then
settle back down to re-enter hibernation. It is not uncommon, however,
for hedgehogs to venture out (particularly if it gets very cold) and
even move to a new hibernaculum for the rest of the winter.

Birds:
December is the month of the ‘bop’ (bird of prey). During the winter,
many harriers and owls can be found around our coastline; some are
residents that have moved from their upland breeding grounds, while
others are migrants from the continent. Hen harriers can be found on
some southern heathlands during the winter, including here on the New
Forest, while marsh harriers and peregrine falcons are attracted to our
estuaries and marshes by the number of wading birds arriving from
further north to spend the winter in Britain. Marshes and the
surrounding farmland are a good place to look for short-eared owls
(below), which hunt for small mammals during the daytime. In good owling
years, Britain’s resident short-eared population can swell by as many as
50,000 individuals coming in from Europe. ‘Shorties’ aren’t the only owl
species to over-winter here. Britain’s 4,000 pairs of barn owls are
joined by as many as 25,000 migrants from Europe during the winter. The
lack of foliage on the trees at this time of year makes spotting other
owl species, particularly long-eared and tawny owls, a bit easier.
Tawnies are currently re-establishing pair bonds and territories in
anticipation of the breeding season and there is much ‘kee-wicking’ and
‘hoo-hooooing’ going on in parks, gardens and woodlands across the
country.

Our lakes and estuaries are busy at this time of year, with flocks of
waders and ducks, many of which have arrived from further north and east
to overwinter in our milder conditions. Keep an eye out for gadwall,
teal, lapwings, snipe, and large flocks of dunlin. Estuaries and
reservoirs are also good spots for swan-watching, with large
aggregations of mute swans around during this month as well as immigrant
yellow-beaked Bewick (left) and
whooper swans. Some 190,000 Canada geese and 200,000 greylag geese come
to Britain for winter and there are an estimated 7,000 avocets that also
overwinter here, with Brownsea Island and Poole Harbour being among the
best spots to watch them. Similarly, our resident populations of garden
birds like robins, starlings and blackbirds are augmented with migrants
from continental Europe and this can produce some large flocks. Last
December, one of my local nature reserves had a count of almost 4,000
starlings and these murmurations are true winter spectaculars – not only
are they amazing to watch, but the noise made by several thousand
starlings pass overhead is something to experience. Good spots for
watching murmurations include Slimbridge WWT in Gloucester, Leighton
Moss Reserve in Lancashire, Aberystwyth Pier in Wales, Blashford Lakes
in Hampshire and Brighton Pier in West Sussex. In the fields, keep an
eye out for large mixed flocks of buntings and finches, including reed
buntings, yellowhammers and chaffinches as well as the odd hawfinch and
brambling. Winter also sees flocks of snow buntings venture along the
coastline as they spread out from their normal haunts of the Cairngorm
slopes.

Reptiles and amphibians: Very few reptiles and
amphibians are to be found this month, particularly when air
temperatures drop below about 10 Celsius (50F). Some species are hardier
than others, though, and the introduced wall lizard, which can be found
along parts of the Hampshire and Dorset coast, can be seen out and about
even in frosty conditions provided there are some patches of sunshine to
bask in. If the winter remains cold then the rest of our snakes,
lizards, frogs, toads and newts will remain in torpor among dense
vegetation, under logs, in the leaflitter or at the bottom of ponds
until spring.

Invertebrates: If December is another mild one
there’s a good chance there will be a few bees and butterflies on the
wing, and there were a few insects in flight towards the end of last
month, although fewer than last winter. Nonetheless, further north,
where it is much colder at the moment, and if that cold air is pushed
further south, insects will either die or find somewhere to hibernate –
stairwells, sheds, garages, conservatories and log piles are all
favoured over-wintering spots for invertebrates. Hibernating insects
such as butterflies are a marvel of biological adaptation, able to
survive temperatures well below freezing during torpor. These insects
have large quantities of sodium, potassium and chloride ions in their
body, which increases the concentration of their body fluids, lowering
the freezing point. In some insect species, glycerol is produced which
can prevent the insect freezing even if the ambient temperature drops to
-50oC (-58oF)! Spiders will also remain active if the winter is mild,
particularly those in our houses. For the arachnophobic, it may be
perversely comforting that there are daddy long-legs spiders (Pholcus
phalangioides) lurking in their houses – they are harmless to us, but
have a bite sufficiently venomous to kill the much larger house spiders
and false widows.

Plants
and fungi: Most of the trees have now lost their leaves, but
this makes their branches more visible and it is now easier to spot
mosses and lichens growing on their bark. Woodland mosses and lichens
can be beautifully elegant, especially when tinged with frost, and make
good photographic subjects. Lichens are a fused partnership of fungus
and alga; the alga photosynthesises to produce sugars (food) which the
fungus absorbs, while the fungal cell protects the alga from the
environment. A win-win situation.

You may also notice clumps of vegetation growing among the bare
branches (right) this month – this is
mistletoe. Mistletoe (Viscum album) is a parasitic plant and
botanists generally group it into three types, or subspecies, according
to the host tree on which they are found growing. V. album album
grows on hardwood (deciduous) trees, while the subspecies abietis
and austriacum are softwood (coniferous) parasites growing on
fir and pine, respectively. Here in the UK mistletoe is found from Devon
in the south west to about Yorkshire in the north, being particularly
common in central and southern England and around London. It is the
album subspecies that can be found growing wild in Britain and it
is found most commonly on apple, lime and poplar trees, although it will
also grow on blackthorn, hawthorn, rowan, willow, cherry, ash, sycamore,
pear, whitebeam, crab apple and occasionally on oak. In common with two
other plants often associated with the festive season, holly and ivy,
mistletoe is dioecious - in other words, rather than having male and
female organs on the same organism like most plants, it produces male
and female flowers on different plants. Ergo, a mistletoe bush is either
male or female, and survey data suggest that female bushes are about
four times as common as males. Berries are produced by female bushes and
are an important source of winter food for many bird species,
particularly thrushes. In spite of their cultural and wildlife
importance, mistletoes are, nonetheless, parasites and sequester
minerals, carbohydrates and nitrogen from the trees on which they grow.
The impact on their host depends on the health of the tree and the
prevailing conditions as much as the intensity of the mistletoe
‘infection’. Broadly speaking, mistletoe infection has been linked with
reduced trunk/branch/leaf/needle growth, increased leaf/needle shedding,
lower vigour, reduced fruiting, lower wood quality and increased
susceptibility to parasite/pest infection of host species. The result
can be a higher than expected mortality among infected trees.

Why mistletoe has such cultural significance, particularly around
Christmas time, remains unclear. There are, however, no shortage of
stories about how kissing under the mistletoe came to be a favoured
festive pastime. Legend has it that mistletoe was considered sacred by
Celtic Druids because it was leafy and berry-laden even during the
depths of winter when the host trees were bare. Indeed, in his
Historia naturalis, Pliny the Elder wrote of how mistletoe was
especially venerated by the Druids of Gaul as a symbol of eternal life.
There are records of various early cultures using mistletoe together
with aromatic substances, such as an incense, to scent houses, animals
and men in a bid to protect against lightning, spells and bad dreams, or
to get in contact with ‘elementary power of nature’ and to find ‘inner
stability’. Subsequent authors point to a particular association between
mistletoe and romance appearing in ancient Norse mythology and note
that, by the eighteenth century, it was apparently common practice for
servants in British houses to steal kisses under bunches of mistletoe
hung in doorways at Christmas. In an article for Fox News last year,
Adam Verwymeren said that it was actually bad luck to kiss under
mistletoe, and stated that a berry was taken from the bunch after each
kiss – when the berries ran out, the bough no longer had the power to
command kisses.

Also around at this time of year is the seasonally appropriate
scarlet elf-cup fungus, which grows from rotten wood and is quite
widespread although not abundant in Britain. The fruiting body has a
diameter of a few centimetres, with a pale pinky-orange outside and a
bright red inside to the cup. So, why not wrap up and go for a walk to
settle that Christmas dinner?

Pick of the Month – Natural World Discoveries

Dogs
judge threats differently if they have female owners
Dogs are often referred to as “man’s best friend” because they play a
diverse role in our society, from protecting our property to improving
the quality of life for many disabled people. We still don’t know when
humans first attempted to domesticate the wild canid that we now know as
the dog, but genetic data published in August of last year suggests it
was probably about 15,000 years ago. According to the Pet Food
Manufacturer’s Association, about a quarter of UK households own one or
more dogs, suggesting there are about 8.5 million in Britain. Dogs
provide companionship that enriches our lives in many ways; one in
particular being that they can make people feel safer and more
confident. Indeed, several female friends of mine have said they feel
safer when their dog is around than when they’re walking on their own,
particularly in the dark, and new research from Hungary suggests that
dogs with female owners assess threats differently to those owned by
men.

In a paper to the journal Animal Cognition a team of
behaviourists at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, led by Peter
Pongrácz, describe their study looking at how dog vocal behaviour
(specifically growls) changed when different ‘threatening’ strangers
approached their owners. They recruited 138 dogs and their owners and
ended up testing 64 of them. Half the group of dogs were males and the
other half females and, as a whole, ranged from 9 months to 11 years
old. They set up a test that involved the dog standing in front of its
owner in one corner of a 4x6 metre (13x20 ft) room as a stranger
approached from the opposite corner. The owners were in charge of
deciding if their dogs were becoming too stressed by the test and could
stop at any time – none did. All strangers were adult white men or
women, eight of each, working at the University’s Department of Ethology
– four of each sex were classed as ‘large’ and the other four as ‘small’
based on a series of criteria. The idea was to see whether dogs gauged
one body size or sex more threatening than the other. They rigged the
room with video cameras and microphones and watched the responses of the
dogs to various combinations of large and small male and female
strangers. Once all the experiments were complete, the recordings were
analysed for the intensity, pitch, acoustic dynamics and tone of the
growls the dogs gave when the stranger approached.

The results showed that the dogs didn’t care about body size, but
male strangers caused the dogs to produce a growl with a lower
Pitch-Formant (P-F) response and narrower formant dispersions when the
dog had either a female owner or was owned by a mixed-sex household.
This suggested to the researchers that these dogs were more highly
aroused and aggressive than dogs either owned by men or approached by
women. This type of growl is also thought to exaggerate the dog’s body
size, making the dog sound larger than it actually is. Interestingly,
they also found that this effect was less pronounced in bigger dogs; so
big dogs were generally less phased than smaller ones. Overall, this
could be interpreted as the dogs being more protective of female owners
approached by men, and that they recognise men as being a more
significant threat to a woman than another woman. These data also help
support a previous study that found dogs in mixed sex households were
better able to assess genders than those who in female-only or male-only
families.

Bovine TB science: Badgers and cattle use the same fields,
but don’t interactTuberculosis
is an infection of the respiratory system caused by bacteria of the
genus Mycobacterium; in humans Mycobacterium tuberculosis
is typically the causative agent, while it is M. bovis that
causes the disease in cattle. M. bovis can also be passed to
other mammals, including badgers, deer, foxes, domestic cats and dogs
and even humans. There were 8,585 incidents of TB in UK cattle herds in
the 12 months to June 2016 that resulted in the slaughter of 69,289
cattle, and it is estimated that, during the past decade, efforts to
control the spread of TB in cattle herds have cost the British taxpayer
£500 million. Many argue that the situation with bovine TB in Britain is
complicated by badger (Meles meles) populations that have
increased in the last 20 years as a result of legal protection. Badgers
are susceptible to the TB bacterium and are unique among our wild
mammals in that it is often a ‘sub-lethal’ infection. This means that
badgers can carry the bacteria, and potentially spread them in the
environment, for many years before succumbing to it – most other mammals
are killed relatively quickly. The first record of tuberculosis in
Meles meles came from Switzerland during the mid-1950s. In 1971, a
dead badger recovered from the Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire was
found to be infected with Mycobacterium bovis – this
represented the first confirmed case in the UK.

A huge amount of money and resource has been invested in trying to
understand the dynamics of TB in the environment and what role cattle
and badgers play in sustaining it. Some argue that badger populations
must be reduced, by culling, to limit the wild reservoir of the disease,
thereby reducing the potential for infection/reinfection of cattle.
Others claim that vaccinating badgers and/or cattle is the only logical
way forward if we are to eradicate the disease, and point to inaccurate
TB tests that mean some carriers go unidentified and can therefore
reinfect the herd. Some countries have seen positive results by culling
wildlife vectors, while there is no shortage of studies suggesting that
culling is not an effective means by which to control the disease. In
recent years we have come closer to understanding how the TB bacteria
may be passed between livestock and wildlife, and a new tracking study
by a team at the Zoological Society of London and Imperial College casts
doubt on the direct inhalation route – i.e. where cattle breathe in
bacteria that infected badgers have breathed out.

The study, led by Rosie Woodroffe and published in the journal
Ecology Letters during August, looked at 421 cows and 54 badgers on
dairy and beef farms at four sites in Cornwall between May 2013 and
August 2015. Not only did they track the badgers and cattle, but they
also fitted the badgers with ultra-high frequency contact collars that
could detect the collars worn by the cattle at distances less than two
metres. In other words, any time a collared badger got within two metres
of one of the collared cows, the badgers’ collar would log it. (The
current thinking is that badgers must be within 1.5m of a cow in order
to transfer M. bovis bacteria to it via its breath.) The data show that
of the GPS locations falling on the farms, almost 60% were in cattle
pasture and that, statistically-speaking, badgers actively chose this
type of habitat. Despite this obvious preference for cattle fields,
however, in 2,914 nights when the contact collars were in use there were
no direct contacts between the two species. Furthermore, when you
combine the GPS and contact collar data it shows that in 8,294
monitoring nights when badgers were located in the ranges of cattle (and
therefore could potentially have wandered up to each other) there were
no occasions when a badger was detected within 1.5m of a cow. Now,
obviously, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so we can’t
say badgers and cattle never come together, but these findings certainly
imply that such occurrences are rare and that direct airborne
transmission of TB between badgers and cattle is unlikely to be a
significant pathway of infection. Instead, the data imply we should be
looking more closely at environmental contamination as a major pathway.

Bird
feeders increase risk of window-strikes, but that’s not the whole story
Britons generally like to think of themselves as a nation of animal
lovers. Many of us feed wildlife in our gardens and birds are the
animals we feed most commonly. A survey for BBC West Midlands in 2010
estimated that 75% of the UK population fed birds at some point during
the year and, of those, nine out of 10 put food out all year round. The
result is that we spend an estimated £282 million on bird food every
year. In the US the percentage is lower, with about 50% of households
feeding the birds, but in total it is estimated that they spend $3.5
billion on food and supplies. This increase in garden bird traffic can
result in some distressing ‘side effects’. Some of us aren’t, for
example, accustomed to predation in our own back garden and are
distressed by the activities of foxes, cats and sparrowhawks. In
addition to this, birds may fly into our windows – sometimes with fatal
results.

A survey for East Sussex Wildlife Rescue between 2012 and 2013 found
that an estimated 100 million birds struck windows in Britain every year
and they made up about 5% of the bird casualties admitted to wildlife
rescue centres. Similarly, in an article to The Condor, Scott
Loss at the National Zoological Park in Washington and colleagues
estimated that anywhere between 365 and 988 million birds were killed
each when they flew into buildings in the US. About 56% of birds that
collided with low-rise buildings were killed, while 44% of those that
hit residences died and fewer than 1% of high-rise collisions were
fatal. In recent years researchers have tried to understand what causes
birds to fly into windows and how we can reduce their frequency or
prevent them altogether. We have thought for a while now that having
bird feeders in the garden increases the risk birds flying into windows,
but only recently has this been tested empirically.

Justine Kummer and Erin Bayne at the University of Alberta in Canada
have conducted a series of studies looking at how the placement of bird
feeders relative to the house affects the number of birds that fly into
windows. One of these studies was published in the journal Avian
Conservation and Ecology at the end of last year and presented data
on 284 trials between April 2014 and May 2015. The study consisted of
paired month-long trials during which a feeder was either present of
absent for a month and then removed or added accordingly for another
month. During the trial there were 145 collisions, 51 at houses without
feeders and 94 at those with them. The data suggest that window
collisions were almost twice as likely at houses with bird feeders
installed. Statistically, however, this wasn’t significant, suggesting
that the feeders were only eliciting a weak effect. The season was a
better predictor, with most collisions happening during the autumn and
the fewest during the winter. Overall, there was a lot of variation
between the houses, indicating that window collisions are
context-dependent. The researchers found that changing the placement,
timing and occurrence of the feeders could reduce the likelihood of a
window collision, but having a feeder is only one part of the picture.
It does seem that placing a feeder close to (within 1m / 3ft) or at
distance (10m / 30ft) from the house may be safest, but in their paper,
the authors conclude:
“Eliminating bird feeders will not solve the bird-window collision
issue.”

The current thinking is that it is vegetation reflected in the
windows that dupes birds into thinking the garden extends into the
house, or a mirror or another window in the room makes it appear that
there is a way through. The advice from charities such as the RSPB is to
obscure windows using random shapes – bird-shaped stickers are widely
available, but most shapes will accomplish the same effect of making the
window more obvious to the birds. The East Sussex Wildlife Rescue point
out that some birds suffer only minor concussion following a strike and
will fly off shortly after, while others suffer more serious beak, neck
or head injuries. Their advice is:

If a bird is showing visible signs of injury such as blood, in
coordination or inability to move or fly always contact your local
wildlife rescue centre for advice as it may require treatment. Whilst
consulting a rescue centre, place the bird in to a box somewhere quiet
and dark to await rescue or to settle down before release.”

As always, I love hearing from readers; any queries or
comments regarding the information on the site can be sent in using the
addresses on the Contact
page. (Note: So: Some website questions are answered on
the FAQ,
while many animal-related questions are covered in the Q/A).
Photos can be e-mailed to a dedicated e-mail address - please keep them
coming and don't forget to check out my Photos
Needed page. I'm also interested in hearing any reports of unusual
behaviour in any of the animals featured on this site, or interactions
between humans and wildlife. Thanks as always for your continued
patience and support. Special thanks this month to Mike McKenzie,
for letting me use is amazing photo of water deer bucks fighting, and
Steph
Powley for her stunning pooch-portrait. As another year
draws to a close, I want to thank, once again, all the people who have
contributed photos to these updates and to Steph Powley and Ali Magnum
for their expert proof-reading skills. Finally, I want to take this
opportunity to wish readers and their families a very
MERRY CHRISTMAS and a
HAPPY NEW YEAR. I
hope to see you back in in 2017!

Okay, for those of you that are new to the site, let's take it from
the top!

What is Wildlife Online?
Essentially, WLOL is an educational website
about British wildlife. The site contains profiles of various British
animal species, with new articles in preparation all the time. The site
also has articles looking at wildlife-related subjects, including
hunting and animal emotions. This site is purely a hobby of mine; it
does not generate any money or contain any advertising and, for the time
being at least, I am happy
for it to stay that way.

What does Wildlife Online aim to achieve?

The ultimate goal of the
website is to be useful. My intention has always been to provide
un-biased, accurate information that’s accessible to anyone with an
Internet connection. Increasingly people are coming into contact with
their local wildlife and whether such interactions are positive or
negative, they generally inspire a desire to learn more about the
species. Moreover, there are still a great many misconceptions
surrounding our wildlife (fox behaviour springs immediately to mind) and
these are brought up time and time again during discussions in the
media. Each article aims to provide a reasonably comprehensive overview
of the species in question by drawing on information from the media,
books, TV programmes and the scientific literature. I feel that this
combination of sources, along with my own observations and those of my
friends/colleagues/readers provides a unique online resource of British
wildlife information. My hope is that the information provided here will
go some way to changing people's perceptions of the creatures with which
they share their parks and gardens.

Why create a website when there are books and TV programmes about
your subjects?
Books can be a fantastic resource and I can't imagine being
without my library. Not all libraries are, however, equally well
stocked, and not everyone has the funds to splash out on what are often
very expensive wildlife books (especially those written by scientists).
More importantly, much of the scientific research never makes it out of
the journals into books and TV shows. Similarly, many of the early books
-- which contain some of the pioneering work on the species -- are now
long out of print and can be difficult or expensive to track down. Books
have the 'luxury' of being able to devote their entire contents to a
particular species, covering all aspects of its life history.
Television, by contrast, is a much more limited and variable medium: the programme editor(s) has to create a show that is likely to hold the
viewers' attention and appeal to a very wide audience. The result is
that, although some reach this compromise very well, many documentaries focus heavily on the 'wow factor'
(multitudinous slow motion shots of Great whites leaping out of the
water in pursuit of seals, for example) and this often comes at the
inevitable expense of the information about the animal. Finally, both
books and TV programmes go out of date quite quickly; new research is
being conducted all the time. Consequently, a website is an ideal and
dynamic intermediate
- it offers the opportunity to provide a decent amount of information
about the subject that can be updated at the metaphorical drop-of-a-hat
as any new research is published.

Why include so much information?
I honestly believe that if a job is
worth doing, it's worth doing well. There are hundreds of websites with
brief species profiles and if that's all WLOL offered there would be
little point to it. I understand and appreciate that some people find
being confronted with large volumes of text very daunting while others are of
the 'too long; didn't read' mind-set and will thus be turned off by the
amount of text facing them. I have tried to remedy this as far as
possible via two avenues: there is a Speed Read section with a brief profile of each
species featured in a main article; and each article has been 'virtually
split', with the aid of hyperlinks, into sections that allow people to
easily jump to the information they're looking for. Ultimately, I want to provide as
much information as is feasible in order to provide the reader with the
clearest appraisal of each species or topic; I hope that most readers approve of
this approach.

Why haven't you included a complete bibliography?
My intention with
WLOL is to provide the information in an accessible format, which means
that anyone should be able to read an article and understand the
information in it. Consequently, I didn't want to format it as a
scientific paper because the current format allows for a much more
informal approach and writing style which, I hope, will appeal to a
wider audience. Most people should find enough information in the
article (I typically provide the name or one or more of the authors and
the journal and year) to track down the original scientific paper. When
I take information from books, I always give the name of the author(s)
and the full title of the book for easy reference. I am also happy to
provide full details of any of the references upon request.

Are you really qualified to do this?
I'm certainly not an expert on
any of the subjects presented on this site. The articles stem from my
varied interests in natural history and biological sciences. In terms of
qualifications, I trained as a scientist (studying natural sciences at
degree and postgraduate level) and all I really do is interpret
information, blend it with associated research and personal observation,
and present it in what I hope is an accessible format. Unless
specifically stated, I do not claim any of the information on this site
to be my own research. I have built relationships with some of the many
diligent researchers who have
produced the data that I use, and I am happy either to recommend an
expert or provide my own opinions on a subject.

As a final note, I want to make a quick reference to the quality of
the material on the site. The great French philosopher and
mathematician, Rene Descartes, once said: "If you would be a real seeker
of truth, you first must be willing to doubt as far as possible all
things." This is very sage advice, especially when it comes to believing
what you read on the Internet. Most Internet sites (indeed, some books and TV
shows too), including this one, have no form of peer-review (i.e. nobody
with experience of the topic checks the site for accuracy); consequently
pretty much anyone can have their own little corner of cyberspace and
information can make it onto websites that is either misguided, or
downright false! When creating material for this site I take every care
to ensure that the information I present is accurate. Invariably errors
will creep in; typos are almost inevitable (although each article goes
through several levels of proof reading before it appears online) and
research is always underway on the species featured here, so the data
can go out of date almost overnight. Each page has regular (ish!)
reviews, however, during which I update the information, adding details of new
findings and taking out that which is now thought highly unlikely. You
can see most of the books I have used in the preparation of this site on
the Recommended Reading page and I have provided links to some of the
most interesting sites I came across during my research – these can be
found under the appropriate sub-heading on the Links page.

Anyway, I digress.... I hope you enjoy looking around the site and I
hope equally that you get something worthwhile out of it. Any comments,
suggestions or (constructive) criticisms are welcome via e-mail -
appropriate addresses can be found on the Contact page.

DISCLAIMER:
All the photographs and artwork on this site are either my own work or
have been donated by readers. All images remain property of their
authors and, if you wish to reproduce any of the pictures, consent must
be granted by the appropriate person - requests can be directed via
myself or see FAQ. For more details on the
content of this site, please see the full WLOL
Disclaimer.